


The Butterfly Chronicles

by Loco_Bnana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4508088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loco_Bnana/pseuds/Loco_Bnana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Butterfly Chronicles is a book I've been working on that could be likened to Chicken Soup, only these stories are all fictional and written by one person. Each chapter is it's own short story, with the title of that chapter being the main character of that story. There's one common thread between all stories, and that's a vibrant, orange butterfly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anne Marie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne Marie is a young girl and in this one she made a new friend.

One time there was a young girl who didn't get along with the other kids. Her name was Anne Marie. There wasn't any real reason, it's not as though she wasn't liked. In fact, most kids thought she was really nice, and would try to strike up conversation with her on the play ground. Anne Marie would smile and nod her head in agreement with whatever the kids said, but didn't have much to say herself. With conversations not going anywhere, Anne Marie was left by herself to pick flowers on the playground.

Anne Marie had a lonely feeling inside of her chest as she sat on the ground. One little girl had just tried to invite Anne Marie to play a game, but was disappointed when Anne Marie said she didn't know the rules. So the little girl had run off. Anne Marie wasn't exactly sad, but curious. She tried to think of how she was different, and what made her alienated from the other kids.

Resolving that she'd never know, Anne Marie bit her lip and threw a piece of grass at the field she was facing. The piece of grass didn't fall very far, in fact it simply drifted in the air and landed gently on her lap. Anne Marie sighed and layed back in the grass. Suddenly, her nose twitched. Something was tickling her nose, now cheek, now eyelid as she closed it. Slowly, so as not to scare away the delicate critter, she sat up. The tiny tickler fluttered from her eyebrow to her finger. Anne Marie now had a chance to observe this delicate being. It was an vividly orange butterfly, with brilliantly large wings.

"I don't suppose you'll stick around, will you?" Anne Marie said softly. The butterfly flapped it's wings once in response. "Well if that's the case, I'd love to have someone to talk to." Anne Marie and her tiny friend sat in the field for a bit in silence. Occasionally the butterfly would fly down to land on a flower, but it'd always come back to Anne Marie's finger.

The bell to signal the end of recess rang, and it was time to go back to classes. "I've got to go, tiny friend," Anne Marie said to the butterfly. The butterfly didn't leave her finger. "Really, tiny friend, you'd be better off out here." The butterfly fluttered away out of Anne Marie's sight. Anne Marie sighed a sad, but relieved sigh and skipped back to her class, unaware of her classmates staring at her in gaping awe.

"You... You've got a butterfly on your head, Anne!" said a young boy who had tried to get Anne Marie to play tic-tac-toe with him one time.

"Hmm?" Said Anne Marie. She furrowed her eyes in confusion, but then she thought about her tiny friend. She lifted her finger up to her forehead, and sure enough, a bright orange butterfly crawled onto her finger. "O-oh... Uh yeah. This is my tiny friend," Anne Marie said. She held her finger up so everyone could see the butterfly.

From that day on, Anne Marie was able to make conversation with the other kids. She doesn't really know why, but she thinks it has something to do with her tiny friend.


	2. Mara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about a young Makeup artist who's been stretched to her limit.

“Look up, look back at me. Okay I think you’re good.” A young woman in her teenage years patted a small girl’s head. This young woman was tall, and had long, thin arms. Half of her short black hair had been braided into cornrows. She had pale skin, but was peppered with a spray of freckles. Her thin jaw and pale lips were a sign she had much more experience than her age let on. This woman’s name is Mara, but the kids she was working with called her “Miss Thunder” because of the storm cloud and lightning bolt that adorned her dark grey tee-shirt. She didn’t mind, names never meant that much to her.

The small girl she was patting had big brown eyes and smooth, also pale skin, but now with extremely rosy cheeks and bright pink lips. The girl’s shoulder length red curls bounced with every pat that Mara gave her. The small girl smiled and giggled. “Thank you Miss Thunder!”

“No problem, Ruth. Alright, who’s next?” The small girl named Ruth got up and skipped away to talk to her friends who had just had their makeup done. A young boy with ear length brown hair and black glasses took the seat that Ruth had just skipped out of.

“This won’t hurt, will it?” The boy said as he took off the glasses and set them on the table next to him.

“That depends,” Mara said with a small smile. “if you move too much I’m going to have to paralyze you with my thunder attacks!”

The young boy laughed, and Mara chuckled a little. “I won’t move, I promise Miss Thunder!”

“Alright, you better keep your promise.” Mara proceeded to apply the stage makeup she was provided to work with. She had only known these little kids for a few days, but she was so thankful to be working with them instead of the teenagers. The vocal group at her school had decided to include kids in their musical (as they usually do) and Mara was in charge of making sure the kids had their makeup done good enough for stage. While it was a stressful job, at least she was thanked by the kids, which is more than can be said about what the other makeup artists got.

Today was a special day for the show, as there were to be two shows put on in the same day. Mara had looked forward to having lunch with these kids ever since she met them. Putting makeup on someone is a rather odd bonding experience, but she felt close to the kids, none the less. She could only imagine what eating with them would be like.

“Okay, time for powder. You’ve done good so far, kiddo. Now we’ve just got to make sure everything we’ve done stays put.” Mara started tapping a small cylinder of tan powder onto the counter and patted a puff onto it. “I’m going to hit you with this puff, okay?”

The small boy closed his eyes and nodded.

“Ready?”

“Mhmm!” said the small boy.

A small cloud of white went over the boy’s face as Mara gently patted his lips, cheeks, forehead, and, with the most gentle of care, his eyelids.

“Okay, look at me,” Mara said, setting down the puff. The boy blinked his eyes open and looked at her. “Look up, look down, Okay I think you’re good.” The boy got up to go, but didn’t get two steps before Mara said “Ah-ah-ah” and handed him his glasses.

“Xièxiè!” the boy said as he put them on and walked away, leaving the chair empty.

Mara looked around, all of the young children seemed to have makeup on, but she had to make sure. Mara stood up on the chair and clapped her hands 5 times, the kids echoing her. “Does everyone have makeup on?” she asked the entire room.

Nods and “Yes!”’s were her answers. Mara sighed, gave everyone a thumbs up, and sat back down. Just as she was getting out her phone to check the time, one of the head makeup girls walked in and put her hand on Mara’s shoulder. Mara quickly sat up; she knew that a hand on the shoulder meant nothing good was about to happen.

“Hey,” Mara said coolly, trying to hide her fear.

“Hey, um… bad news…” Said the girl, now taking a seat in front of her. This makeup girl was small, with long blonde hair and big blue eyes. The mascara and eyeliner that were so expertly applied earlier in the day was now smudged from disregard and forgetfulness. streaks of red and black creams covered the girl’s arms from when she had needed to clean off her brushes.

Just then one of the vocal music teachers had come in to lead the kids into their warm-ups. Mara and the head makeup girl were forced to step outside of the room.

The makeup girl brushed back her hair nervously and looked at the floor.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Mara asked in a bit of a panic.

“So um… They’re not feeding us. We don’t get to go have lunch with the rest of the cast.” The makeup girl kept looking at the white tiles underneath her feet.

Mara furrowed her brow, and slowly nodded. “Right… okay…”

The blonde girl looked up now. “We were going to order some pizza for ourselves if you’d like to join in.”

“Yeah, here.” Mara handed the girl a wrinkled ten dollar bill from her pocket. The girl smiled, and offered Mara a hug. Mara took it, but it didn’t feel very comforting. It felt like an empty attempt to join together and accept they were forgotten. It didn’t quite work. The mousy makeup girl quickly walked back to where all of the other makeup girls were recovering from their hard work on the leads of the show.

Mara leaned against a wall and took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe how inconsiderate some people were acting. Mara looked around, no one was looking back at her. She sighed.

Mara knew that she had a few cigarettes in her purse. She wasn’t supposed to smoke, even though she was 18. The school she was going to had a strict policy against it. However, Mara was of age, and she wasn’t wearing her school ID. It wasn’t school hours, either, so she could possibly get away with it.

For a while Mara leaned against the wall and contemplated if she really wanted to smoke. She thought about the pros and cons to stepping outside for a break and calming her nerves. As she stood there and thought, a few students in bright costumes walked by, discussing how excited they were for the expensive lunch they were going to have, provided by the parents of course. Mara followed their trail with narrowed eyes, and decided that was enough to send her over the deep end.

She opened the door to walk in, just as all the kids were getting lined up to go to the cast meeting.

“Miss Thunder! Miss Thunder!” one of the young boys with a lot of freckles ran up to her and tugged on her shirt. “I accidently scratched my makeup! Is it okay?”

Mara swallowed the angry words she had been thinking and got on her knees to get on a face to face level with the child. “Let’s see… Look up, look down, look back at me.” The kid complied with all these things Mara asked him to do. “Pout like a puppy.”

“What?” asked the kid.

“Pout… like a puppy,” Mara said more slowly this time.

The kid stuck his bottom lip out and whimpered.

“Roar like a lion,” Mara grinned.

“Rooooaaaaar!” The kid bared his teeth. Mara playfully punched the kid’s shoulder, and he smiled.

“You’re good. Knock ‘em dead, kid.” Mara got up and grabbed her purse as the boy ran to catch up with the other kids who had left for preshow. Making sure the kids couldn’t see her, she walked quickly around the corner to the nearest exit, pulling out her box of cigarettes and her lighter.

“Hey, you can’t smoke!” one of the vocal students from earlier tried to stop Mara by grabbing her shoulder.

Mara looked into the student’s eyes with a cold, icy glare. “Bite me.” Mara kept walking.

When Mara got outside she leaned against the wall again, taking a second to breath in the new spring air. Planter boxes around the school were stuffed with blue and yellow flowers, and white butterflies were lazily fluttering from flower to flower. The sun was high up in the sky, and gave a bit of warmth to Mara as she sighed.

Mara pulled a cigarette out of it’s box. This would be the first time in 6 months that she had smoked. As she was about to hit the lighter’s button, an orange butterfly landed on her fingers.

Mara transitioned the lighter to the hand that was holding the cig, and raised her fingers to look at the butterfly. The tiny creature slowly moved it’s wings up, then down, then up again.

“Hello, tiny friend. You interrupted something I don’t think you’d enjoy.” Mara turned her hand to look at the butterfly from another angle. A slight tugging at Mara’s shirt broke her focus, and the butterfly fluttered away.

“Miss Thunder?” Mara looked down, and a pair of big brown eyes framed by red curly hair stared back up at her.

“Ruth?” Mara knelt down on one knee and put her free hand on the small girl’s shoulder. “What are you doing out here? Pre show is about to start.”

“My mommy says that cigarettes are really bad for you, even worse than candy! So I thought maybe you’d like a piece of candy instead…” Ruth held out a small chocolate bar that had been given to her after the last show.

Mara dropped her cigarette and lighter in order to cover her small gasp.

“Does that mean yes?” Ruth asked, her eyes trailing the cigarette rolling away.

Mara now put both hands on the girl’s shoulders and smiled, not even fighting her tears anymore. “Yes, Ruth.” Mara hugged the girl. “It does.”

The girl hugged back. This hug felt as though a thousand “thank you’s” were being delivered to Mara’s ears. This hug was warm, and it told Mara that she would never, ever be forgotten.


End file.
